


in the service of liars and killers

by gdgdbaby



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, it's absurd how easily she incapacitates him. Cross to the right cheek, elbow block, backstab to the solar plexus, and then a roundhouse kick to finish things off. That last one seems a bit excessive at the time, but who is he to question her style? Close hand-to-hand combat has never been his strongest suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the service of liars and killers

**Author's Note:**

> drakoff's daughter. são paulo. the hospital fire. budapest. originally posted on [livejournal](http://gdgdbaby.livejournal.com/87838.html).

Clint isn't even clocking in legitimate hours tonight—he's on guard duty for the _guard duty_. Konstantin Drakoff is a Soviet scientist turned American military consultant, which apparently means he and his daughter get assigned personnel with higher clearance and more field experience than Clint's got.

Which is bullshit, really. Clint was fucking Special Ops in the war, could run covert missions in his sleep. If that isn't experience in spades, he has no idea what is. He hadn't left the Air Force for this. Fury promised him vengeance.

To the director's credit, Clint's gotten it, tenfold—but that's over, now. He's left with nothing more than a glorified babysitting job, and—

And S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are dropping like flies inside the mansion. He barely has time to react to the crackle of his earpiece before someone's climbing smoothly out of the rooftop ventilation shaft, flipping in graceful arcs to land two feet away from him.

Her blonde hair's mussed, lipstick smeared, eyes sharp. "You're new," she remarks, as if commenting on the weather, a thick Russian drawl in her voice.

"Katerina's dead," someone gasps into the intercom. "Drakoff's okay, he's fine, just unconscious from a blow to the back of his head—"

"You killed his daughter," Clint says flatly. "Why?"

Her mouth curves up. "It's my job," she offers. "Drakoff is an asset. His daughter was expendable." She shrugs. "Goodbye."

Clint frowns. "You think I'm just going to let you waltz out of here without a fight?"

"Yes," she says, looking amused. Clint's hand curls around the handle of his gun. "Foregone conclusion."

 

 

In retrospect, it's absurd how easily she incapacitates him. Cross to the right cheek, elbow block, backstab to the solar plexus, and then a roundhouse kick to finish things off. That last one seems a bit excessive at the time, but who is he to question her style? Close hand-to-hand combat has never been his strongest suit.

Clint is in the hospital for a week. Afterwards, he decides to start going to the gym during his off hours.

 

 

So it's high summer in Brazil, and Coulson sends him there on a solo mission.

The job itself is easy enough. The guy's supposed to be a drug-dealing crime lord, but his security detail is absolute shit. Getting out of the city is the hard part, especially after Clint blows the entire compound sky high in an attempt at evidence cleanup. The citywide alarms go off, helicopters and foot patrols everywhere. Coulson leaves several unhappy voicemails on his phone, something about damage control and unnecessary collateral damage.

He's in the hotel lobby debating whether or not to reply when he sees her sitting at the bar. It is, quite possibly, the worst cliché in the entire world, but there she is. Her hair's longer, darker, and it falls over her shoulders in a smooth waterfall. She catches his eye over the bartender's shoulder. The only indication she recognizes him is the subtle lift of an eyebrow.

Then, of course, the goddamn polícia burst in, guns blazing. Clint pulls his sunglasses on, attempts to look casual.

"We're looking for foreigners traveling alone," the chief shouts, voice clipped and tense.

One of the policemen spots him on the couches and hurries over. "Sir, are you alone?"

Clint slips a hand behind his back to palm the gun tucked in his jeans and pretends to be extremely interested in his copy of the local newspaper.

The cop frowns and grabs his shoulder. "We need to see your identification papers."

"He's with me," someone says from behind him. There's a delicate hand brushing his shoulder and then she slides into view, a disarming smile on her face. "Let's go, sweetheart."

The police back off, and she leads him around to the elevators in the back.

Clint throws the first punch. It hits the air just shy of her shoulder. 

"You're much better," she says in English, surprised, catching his fist and shoving it back in his face. There's no trace of an accent, this time. "I'm impressed."

"I was inspired," he says drily.

"Are you here to kill me?" she asks, dodging a chop to the kneecap.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"You attacked me first," she notes, and slams his head against the wall so hard he blacks out.

When he comes to, they're riding the elevator up to the penthouse suite. "So you're not here to kill me."

"Not everything is about you," she says, voice wry.

"What are you doing in São Paulo, then?"

"That's classified," she says, eyeing him warily.

"I'm sure I'll be reading all about it in the papers tomorrow."

She inclines her head, concedes the point. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

There's a buzz from his phone: a text from Coulson. _Don't do it_.

"I'm just here on vacation," he says lamely. For a second, she almost looks disappointed, but the expression smoothens back out into disinterested placidity a moment later. The elevator doors ping open. She crosses to the open balcony in a heartbeat, swan dives over the ledge.

"What the fuck," Clint announces to the empty room.

 

 

The next morning, the front-page story of every major news outlet in Brazil is about the quiet, inexplicable assassination of a very high-profile government agent and his family. Amongst other conspiracy theories, there's brief but fervent speculation about ties to the former Soviet Union.

His one-man drug-ring bust is relegated to page five or seven in the most of the dailies, depending on the publication.

"Her name's Natalia Romanova, codename Black Widow." Coulson tells him, without prompting. "She works for the KGB."

"Huh," Clint says. He files it away.

 

 

Security duty is never the greatest gig in the world, and hospitals just make it all worse. The whole place reeks of antiseptic and anesthesia. Fluorescent lights bleed the color out of everything.

One moment he's staring at a couple of the new trick arrow prototypes on Coulson's phone, and the next, he's watching a wall of flame come at them from down the hall. "Secure the objective," Coulson shouts into his walkie-talkie before pushing him out the double doors.

Clint vaults up the stairs. Natalia is in the stairwell to the third floor, hair long and wavy and a vivid red. One of the doctors is slumped over against the wall, sitting in a pool of blood. The ceiling shakes plaster into the air. A second later, the sprinkler system goes off: too little, too late.

"Natalia." If she's surprised he knows her name, she doesn't show it.

"For the record, the electrical fire wasn't me," she says mildly.

"I'm supposed to just believe you?" Clint asks.

"Does it matter? It's already done." She pulls something out of the doctor's coat and tucks it into her jacket pocket before launching herself at him. He braces himself for the impact, but she just grabs his arm, swings both of them out into a hallway and drags him out a window right before the entire third floor collapses in on itself.

"Jesus Christ," he bites out, and shoots a rappelling arrow at the building next door.

They hit the ground hard. "Thanks, Robin Hood," she says, voice wry, and takes off running down the street.

The bud in his ear flares into life. "We're good. The objective's been moved to a secure location," Coulson says. "All available agents are now on rescue detail."

Clint pulls himself up and narrowly avoids getting hit by a falling piece of plaster. "Jesus Christ," he says again, and runs into the burning building.

 

 

"Are you here to kill me?" she asks.

They're on the waterfront, St. Stephen's Basilica lit up several blocks behind them. Half of the church's right tower is caved in on itself and there are police cars everywhere.

Natalia's perched on the railing leading to the docks, bottom half of her face obscured by the upturned collar of her coat.

"You took out one of our top Russian informants while he was on holiday in Europe," Clint says conversationally. "And about a dozen of his associates with him. Did you really think S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to let that slide?"

"I was angry," she says by way of explanation.

"You? Angry?" Clint leans back against his bench and crosses his arms. "You're the Black Widow. You kill without pity. Angry isn't really your modus operandi, is it?"

"It happens," Natalia says. "I was compromised."

He tugs an arrow out of his quiver and taps it against his leg. "Do tell."

Natalia stares at him. "Do you usually spend so much time conversing with your targets?"

He shrugs. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is a global defense organization. If I do get a target, it's because they did something worth talking about. So—what happened? Humor me."

"It's not that complicated," she says dispassionately. "Malcontent spreads like a disease, and the KGB executed the people who helped raise me. They made me who I am, and they were killed for it. I had to settle that debt."

He considers this. "That's—very sentimental. Not like you."

Natalia scowls. "Is that what you know? You have no idea who I am."

"I know what it's like to want revenge," he says.

An ambulance wails by, sirens blaring.

Clint stands, tucks the arrow back where it belongs. "Your dossier is pretty impressive. What's your mission success rate? Ninety, ninety-five percent?"

She blinks. "Ninety-nine."

Clint whistles appreciatively. "We could use that kind of competence. I'm sure the KGB isn't happy with this turn of events, and you have a very particular skill set."

"Are you offering me a job?" she asks, incredulous. "You know S.H.I.E.L.D. would never go for it."

"I'll vouch for you," he says. He is vaguely surprised to find that he means it. "You did save my life, once. Consider it a debt repaid."

"You have no idea who I am, Agent Barton," she repeats.

He grins. "So teach me."

"You're very trusting, very fast," Natalia points out. Her eyes dart across his face, uncertain.

"Oh, come on, Natalia," Clint says, and hopes to God she doesn't pull a fast one on him. "We've known each other for years."

 

 

The local militia rolls out some rusty tanks on them, which is rather rude, all things considered. Clint and Natalia end up four blocks down, right outside the basilica, traffic piled up in ruins around them.

"Natalia's a bit dated," she shouts over the noise, and unloads half a magazine of bullets into one of the men that makes a run at them. "Call me Natasha. All my friends do."

Clint notches another arrow and laughs. "Oh, is that what we are?"

"If I'm defecting, you're going to be the only one I have."

"Point," he says. "Alright, Natasha."

She smiles into the next shot.

A moment later, the Hungarian military arrives. It turns out they aren't too happy with the destruction of a national icon. "Jesus," Clint says. "When shit rains, it pours."

His phone buzzes. Coulson's smug face slides onto his screen.

"Where's the fucking quinjet?" he yells into the receiver. "I've got some extra cargo coming with me."

"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate it when you say that?" Coulson says.

 

 

As some sort of recompense for how much of a pain in Coulson's ass he is, Clint and Natasha are thrown together to form Strike Team Delta.

Or maybe Coulson and Fury are just clairvoyant, because it works out much better than either of them could have imagined. She teaches him about espionage and manipulation, finesse and attention to detail. He teaches her about strategy and war and how to cultivate a healthy disregard for protocol, or at least appreciate his. Natasha goes in deep cover, trades masks like clothing. Clint sees everything from up high. She can still kick his ass six ways to Sunday. In tandem, they're seamless. Easy.

 

 

Loki's control is like getting trussed up in a straightjacket and tossed into the back of his own mind, every muscle screaming as they act against his will. It's the second worst thing he's ever experienced, right underneath receiving the letter in Afghanistan about his brother's death in a drug deal gone wrong, and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it.

He can't do a thing about this, either.

Clint comes back into himself to a world of pain, skull throbbing, bite marks on his arm. Natasha's face swims into his line of vision, sweaty and exhausted and _familiar_ , and all he manages to get out is a cracked, "Tasha?" before she punches him again, and then it's lights out, game over.

 

 

His thoughts clear in increments.

"Cognitive recalibration," she's saying. "I hit you really hard in the head."

"Thanks," he says quietly. The corners of Natasha's lips tilt up. She uncuffs him.

With the solid barrier that comes from complete lack of control removed, everything rushes back with startling clarity: recruiting from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s healthy list of enemies, stealing the iridium, crashing the helicarrier's engines. It's the immediacy of it that hurts. Clint has always known who he is and what he's done, and to reconcile recent events would mean taking full responsibility—

"Tasha," he says. "How many agents did I—"

"Don't," she interrupts, the lines of her face tense. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint. This is Loki." She doesn't break her gaze, but there's an unsettled quality in her eyes. "This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."

They are both dripping blood from their hands, but when she says it, it sounds true. It sounds like something that could absolve him.

 

 

Later, after the Chitauri have been dealt with, she tells him about Coulson.

"This was Loki," she repeats. It is harder to believe.

It is harder not to put an arrow straight through Loki's eye socket, but he gets by. They always do.

 

 

Clint slouches forward in his seat and props his foot up on Natasha's chair, chewing slowly. His jaw aches, and the jury's still out on possible head trauma. The words in his tattered copy of _The Art of War_ aren't blurring yet, though, so he thinks he'll be all right.

Natasha catches the front cover of the book and rolls her eyes, as if to say _Sun Tzu, really?_

Clint grins. He steals one of Natasha's fries and flips to the next page.

**Author's Note:**

> totally lifted the são paulo scene from mr. and mrs. smith. speaking of which, someone please write that au for me immediately. IT'S BASICALLY CANON.


End file.
